Going beyond the photograph

In January this year(2016), we had this beautiful photograph posted in the group by Alison Adcock. The link to the original post is Here.

It surely is an intriguing photograph, a photograph that asks a lot of questions. It’s beautiful (unfortunately a lot of street photographs I see today aren’t) and it’s a photograph you instantly fall in love with.

We spoke with Alison last month about the photograph and the circumstances behind the image. Hope it helps you look beyond the f-stops, shutter speeds, lenses and understand the true language of photography.

Alison says, “Over last summer I was working on a street photography project (inspired by Martin Parr of course!) about the English and how they enjoy the seaside for my website. One Saturday in July I was on the pier in Brighton on the south coast, which was one of my strategic points for collecting funny scenes, and I came across a seagull eating some ice cream on a pier post. The pier is quite a bit higher than the beach and so with the wheel in the distance, the point of view is quite interesting plus there is always a lot of activity on the pier itself. The sunshine was super and the gull was reflecting light as if I was using studio lighting. Plus the colour of the summer sky for me really enhances the scene. The gull was mostly interested in the ice cream and so I was able to take a few shots while it was moving around. To start with I was trying to make a disproportionate head in the frame. Then I thought about making the seagull as big as I could in the frame with the view of Brighton beach and the wheel behind. Eventually though the seagull got a bit fed up with me and turned to walk away. When he raised his foot, I had my opportunity: Gullzilla was born!”

We asked her to share a few frames, before and after the photograph, as the scene was involving. The selected image is the last one that she shot.